It’s an outlandish notion, of course. Imagine these two as roomies; there could be no odder couple. One is taciturn, controlled, bookish, and has long commanded respect, if not fear, from friend and foe alike. The other? No more need be said.

Yet there’s an argument to be made that, politically, Harper and Ford are more similar than they are different, in terms of the grand bargains they’ve struck with their constituencies; and that, if anything, the clownish Toronto mayor is doing a better job of holding up his end, these days, than is the prime minister.

In the Commons Tuesday, Harper and the Conservatives sustained yet another bruising barrage from NDP leader Thomas Mulcair. Sen. Mike Duffy’s latest revelation – that his $13,500 legal bill was paid by the Conservative party — is now confirmed. The best explanation the PM could offer was that such payments are routine. As for why the party he heads saw fit to foot the bill for a senator in trouble over behaviour now deemed a hanging offence, he had no answer. It’s a mystery, like the Shroud of Turin.

Duffy, of course, has burned his own reputation to ash, even as he torches the PMO. He admits he lied initially about the source of the $90,000 with which he repaid his inappropriate housing expenses last March, saying it had come from an RBC loan, when in fact it came from former chief of staff Nigel Wright, or possibly even the Conservative party. Others can deny, whereas Duffy has confessed.

If you want to read a transcript of Mike Duffy’s latest dramatic Senate performance, you can do so here. You have to really want to read it, though. While I was perusing the text, a little bubble popped up on the screen, carrying comments from some other anonymous reader: “Your statement says a lot more about you than anything else.” I had to agree.

Duffy’s diatribe contains more questions that need answering, and will involve more embarrassment for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. It does nothing to prove Mr. Harper knew anything more than he says he did. But it cements the impression that Curly, Larry and Moe could have done a better job of running the Prime Ministers Office for him, and makes you wonder just how much more there is that he didn’t — or doesn’t — know about.

The same to a lesser degree applies to Sen. Pamela Wallin, with her claims of vendettas in the Upper Chamber, and Sen. Patrick Brazeau, who by his own account was a PMO puppet. It’s all tawdry and pathetic. Small wonder more than 70% of Canadians surveyed by pollster Ipsos Reid think the suspensions should proceed.

But consider the Ford analogy. The Toronto mayor’s implicit deal with his supporters is simple; I’ll keep your taxes low and you overlook my egregious personal flaws. Stephen Harper’s supporters have long known he has a mean streak, dislikes answering questions, and allows his party to routinely misrepresent the positions of his opponents. They don’t care. Suburban Canadians in one election after another have trusted Harper’s economic stewardship and steady hand. Competence is the alpha and omega of his brand.

The question delegates will be asking themselves at the party’s convention, beginning Thursday in Calgary, is simply this: Where has that gone?

May 14, CTV’s Bob Fife broke the story that Duffy had received “help” from Wright in repaying his expense tab. June 5 Harper told the Commons Wright had acted alone. In July it emerged in an RCMP court filing that at least four other people were in the loop – former PMO issues management head Chris Woodcock, former PMO lawyer Benjamin Perrin, former assistant chief of staff David van Hemmen and Tory Sen. Irving Gerstein. CTV recently reported that 13 people knew. Last week, the PM admitted for the first time that Wright had told “a few” other people in the office.

So: What went on in the PMO between mid-May and June 5? Imagine you’re Stephen Harper. It’s May 19 and Nigel Wright has just quit — or by the PM’s own changed version of events Monday, been “dismissed.” Logically, you haul every staffer on the carpet. You insist that anyone who knows anything fesses up, or else. Anyone later found to have been less than honest, presumably, gets fired. Yet Woodcock left the PMO in July to become chief of staff to Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver. How does that square with common sense, and the PM’s insistence that he, Harper, was in the dark until May 15?

Oddest of all is the handling of the three proposed Senate suspensions. This was a war of choice, not of necessity. The poll data suggests there is a populist case for a “hang-em-high” approach, hypocritical though it may be. But how did the PM not foresee the cannon blasts he would sustain? How did he not anticipate the concerns about due process that have divided his caucus? How did he not expect the revelation that his own party had covered Duffy’s legal bill? You’re outraged about his misuse of taxpayers’ money, yet you pay his tab?

Harper’s contract with his constituents does not require him to be likeable or charismatic. He has never been these things, and has always won anyway. But it does require him to be competent. Where, in this morass, is the competence? It’s as though, in losing Wright, Harper lost his tactical brain. That impression — that he is flailing — is the most lasting damage here. He can be extraordinarily cunning and agile when pressed, as the prorogation crisis of 2009 showed. No one should count him out. But where is the famous resourcefulness?

The Liberal sponsorship scandal was worth $100 million; this is $90,000, plus an additional $13,500. Nevertheless, it is now Harper’s sponsorship. The pressure on him, as he heads to Calgary to face his base, could scarcely be greater.